Faculty Bio

Dr. Luke Bresky

Associate Professor,

Born and schooled in Calgary, Luke completed his doctorate in American Literature at UCLA. After a post-doc Fulbright in Germany, he came home in 2003, joining the newly-accredited English program at St. Mary’s University the following year. Since then, he has taken pride in the University’s growth, and taken part in it as Capstone Coordinator, Faculty Association President, and Representative to the Board of Governors. With the Canadian Association for American Studies, he has served as Executive Secretary and Conference Organizer, hosting CAAS on campus in 2018. His research focuses on the literature and culture of the Antebellum reform movement (esp. anti-slavery and women’s rights). An avid skier and hiker, Luke also uses his spare time to voice bad puns and subjective opinions about wine.

  • “Editor’s Introduction: Alternative/Mainstream.” Canadian Review of American Studies 52.2 (August 2022).
  • Editor, “Special Issue: Alternative/Mainstream.” Canadian Review of American Studies 52.2 (August 2022).
  • “‘A Day-Dream, and Yet a Fact’: Universal Emancipation in The Blithedale Romance.” Stories of Nation: Fictions, Politics, and the American Experience. Martin Griffin, Christopher Hebert, eds. U of Tennessee P, 2017
  • “Observing Manners in Hawthorne’s Blithedale.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 43.1 (Spring 2017).
  • “Brook Farm and Utopian Literature.” American History Through Literature (1820-1870) 3rd edition. Laura Liebman, ed. Gale Research, 2016.
  • “Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America, by Peter Coviello” (Review). Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 42.2 (Fall 2016).
  • “Pro-Americans, Proto-Americans, and Un-Americans in Melville’s Israel Potter.” A Passion for Getting it Right: Essays Celebrating Michael J. Colacurcio’s 50 Years of Teaching. Peter Lang, 2015.
  • Review: The Entanglements of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Haunted Minds and Ambiguous Approaches, by Samuel Chase Coale. Studies in the Novel. (Forthcoming 2013)
  • “Impounders of Stray Women: Feminine Fugitives at Blithedale.”American Political Fictions. Martin Griffin, ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. (Forthcoming 2013.)
  • “The Recuperative Trend in Hawthorne Studies: New or Improved?”Canadian Review of American Studies Vol. 41.2 (August 2011).
  • “Latitudes and Longitudes of Our Condition: The Nationality of Emerson’s Representatives.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance Vol. 48.4 (October 2002).
  • “Kindred.” Literature and Its Times. Vol V. Joyce Moss, ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 2003.
  • “Invisible Man.” Literature and Its Times. Vol IV, 1999.
  • “Marcel Mauss’s National Internationalism: An Approach to The Gift.” In Paroles Gelées 15.2 (1997).
  • “Babbitt.” In Literature and Its Times. Vol III, 1997.